‘Border crossing’ examines how people form identities, define success, and utilize community-based pedagogical spaces to cross literal and figurative borders. The circumstance in which various social identities intersect and often times dictate our experiences suggest that negotiating race, place, and complex space is a matter of life and death for many citizens across the world. For example, in jurisdictions such as the U.S. and Bermuda, racial tensions are the palpable and obvious reality, yet the average citizen has no idea how to sensibly react. This concept offers a reasonable response that pushes participants and readers to account for and draw on the best of what we know, the core of who we are, and the needs and histories of those we serve. After engaging in this workshop or reading the book, you just might find that you too, are a border crosser!

What is FREEdership?

Dr. Ty defines FREEdership as thoughtfully urgent, culturally and critically grounded leadership that accounts for and draws on scholarship, stories, and systems to leverage the best of what we know (research), the core of who we are (mesearch), and the needs and histories of those we serve (wesearch). As a border-crossing brotha scholar--a Black male academician who has navigated many geopolitical, cultural, and physical borders between Bermuda--my country of birth--and the U.S. university classroom--I have embraced the calling to build bridges between traditional classrooms and what some would see as non-traditional educative spaces... spaces of healing and refuge for black communities (e.g. the barbershop and church). I describe my work as FREEdership. FREEdership is the product of FREEsearch plus leadership; FREEsearch is what happens when research, mesearch, and wesearch are all combined. FREEsearch is the personal, professional, and pedagogical work of border-crossing brotha/sistah scholars.